Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki (Greek Θεσσαλονίκη (f. sg.) [θɛsalɔˈnikʲi], short also Saloniki Σαλονίκη, Turkish Selânik, Ladino Salonika or Selanik, in southern western as well as all southern Slavic languages Solun (Солун); in the biblical context used German name Thessalonica) is with 325.182 (2011) inhabitants, the second-largest city in Greece, the capital of the administrative region of Central Macedonia, and the economic and cultural center of the entire Greek region of Macedonia. In 2001, the population of the immediate metropolitan area of Thessaloniki, including the immediately adjacent cities and towns, was 954,027, and in 2004 an estimated 995,766.

The city is located on the northwestern foothills of the 1201-meter-high Chortiatis and borders on the Thermaic Gulf. It is an important modern university, trade fair, cultural, industrial and port city at the intersection of important millennia-old north-south and west-east traffic routes (Via Egnatia). The patron saint of the city is St. Demetrios, to whom a large early Christian basilica is dedicated. The landmark of Thessaloniki is the Lefkós Pýrgos (Λευκός Πύργος 'white tower') built by the Ottoman architect Sinan.

The early Christian and Byzantine churches of the city already mentioned in the New Testament (two letters of the Apostle Paul are addressed to the church in Thessaloniki) were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1988. In 1997 Thessaloniki was European Capital of Culture.

History

Macedonian period

Thessaloniki was founded in 315 BC by the Macedonian king Kassandros as Thessalonikē by merging 26 smaller towns on the site of Therme on the Thermaic Gulf, originally a Thracian settlement and named after his wife Thessalonikē, a half-sister of Alexander the Great. The name Thessalonikē commemorated the conquest of Thessaly by Macedonia (Thessalonikē, 'victory in Thessaly', to ancient Greek νίκη nikē 'victory') under Philip V (359 to 336). In 168 BC the Romans abolished Macedonian kingship and made Macedonia, with Thessalonica, a province of their empire in 146 BC.

Roman period

Thessalonica was situated on the Via Egnatia, the main traffic route between Rome and Byzantium, and on the Balkan road leading north. It became the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia. In 58 BC Cicero went into temporary exile here. After fleeing Italy from Caesar in 49 BC, the consuls moved their quarters to Thessalonica. About 200 senators accepted their invitation. They declared the meeting place to be Roman state soil, so that senate meetings could be held. About 49 or 50 AD, the Apostle Paul stayed in Thessalonica on his second missionary journey and founded the second named Christian church in Europe after Philippi. A few years after 260, attacks by the Goths were repelled by the city.

Around 300, under Emperor Galerius, Thessaloniki became one of the imperial residences of the Roman Empire and was equipped with important buildings, among them with the imperial palace, the horse-racing track (Hippodrome) parallel to the palace, the Arch of Galerius (victory monument of Emperor Galerius next to the Via Egnatia, erected on the occasion of a victory over the Sassanids), the Rotunda (perhaps a mausoleum or pantheon) and the Forum, as well as an Agora (pillars with magnificent relief figures of a two-storey hall is today in the Louvre, Paris) with an Odeion. In 322, Emperor Constantine I. (the Great) built an artificial harbor basin at the southwest corner of Thessaloniki. In 325 Licinius (co-emperor from 308 to 324) was executed in Thessalonica. Thus Constantine finally became sole ruler (totius orbis imperator); on May 11, 330, Byzantium finally became the Christian imperial capital (Second Rome) and a little later was renamed Constantinopolis. The time in which Thessaloniki had been the imperial residence thus came to an end. In 390, Thessaloniki experienced an uprising against emperor Theodosius I, that he had bloodily put down in the so-called massacre of Thessaloniki. After the division of the empire in 395, Thessalonica belonged to the eastern part of the empire under Emperor Arcadius and his successors.

Byzantine period

In the first two centuries of the Byzantine period (560 to 750) Thessaloniki was repeatedly besieged unsuccessfully by advancing Avars and Slavs, among others in 586, 610?, 615 and 617 (see also Balkan campaigns of Maurikios). During the Slavic conquest of large parts of Greece in the early Middle Ages, the city resisted successfully and remained an imperial base: in the early 9th century the Byzantine archontate of Thessaloniki was established. In the 9th century began a long period of peace, during which Thessaloniki became the starting point of the Orthodox Christianization of the Slavs by Cyril (born in Thessaloniki in 826/827) and Methodius, creating a Slavic, Glagolitic alphabet from Greek. In its heyday, Thessaloniki was the second most important city in the Byzantine Empire next to the capital Constantinople, today's Istanbul.

In 904 Saracens conquered and destroyed the city after only three days of siege. In 1185 it was conquered and devastated by Sicilian Normans. From 1204 Thessalonica was the capital of a short-lived Frankish kingdom under Boniface I, Marquis of Montferrat, as part of the 4th Crusade. Hagios Demetrios and Hagia Sofia became temporary Catholic churches. From 1224 to 1242 the despots of Epiros resided in Thessaloniki, and in 1227 Prince Theodoros I Angelos (a cousin of Emperor Alexios III) had himself crowned counter-emperor here. In the meantime, the city was annexed to the Bulgarian Empire of Tsar Ivan Assen II. In 1246 the city was reincorporated into the Byzantine Empire.

For Thessaloniki, the second city in the empire, a glorious epoch began, of which still today numerous church buildings testify, the Hagioi Apostoloi, the Hagia Ekaterini, the Vlatades monastery or also the large mole, which protected the port and of which a part is preserved until today. Venetians and Genoese extended their influence during this period, Venice even got its own quarter. Thessaloniki felt to be a centre of science: Thomas Magister (1270-1325), Demetrios Triklinios (1280-1340), Saint Gregorios Palamas (1296-1359) or Demetrios Kydones (1324-1397) worked here. In 1308 the Catalan Company unsuccessfully besieged Thessaloniki, and from 1342 to 1349 radical revolutionaries (the "Zealots") established an autonomous city republic. From 1387 to 1391 and from 1394 Turks ruled the city in the meantime. In 1403 Thessaloniki became Byzantine again and came to Venice in 1423.

Ottoman period

On 29 March 1430, after almost two months of siege, Thessaloniki was conquered by Sultan Murad II and incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. Thessaloniki became Selânik / سلانيك. In 1515 the art of printing reached the city. In the 17th century it was the most important trade center of the Balkans. In 1821/1822, Ottoman troops defeated the flared Greek liberation struggle, which was successful in southern Greece and led to the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece there.

At the end of the 19th century Thessaloniki took an enormous upswing. While in 1865 the city had about 50,000 inhabitants, by 1880 it had 90,000 and by 1895 about 120,000. In 1869 the southern parts of the Byzantine city walls were torn down to make room. On May 6, 1876, angry Muslims killed the German and French consuls in a riot that severely strained diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire. In 1871 the railway line to Skopje was built and in 1888 it was connected to the European railway network via Belgrade and in 1896 it was continued eastwards to Dedeağaç, today's Alexandroupoli.

The city was severely damaged by an extensive fire on September 4, 1890, which left 20,000 people, mostly Jews, homeless. Among others, the European quarter with the British and Greek consulates, the Greek hospital, St. Sophia's Church, the Byzantine Church with the government archives, the Metropolitan Church and seven synagogues burned down. In 1893 the first tramway was installed, pulled by Russian and Hungarian horses, contributing to the further expansion of the city. It was also during this period that the only Bulgarian gymnasium in the Ottoman Empire, initially known as the Bulgarian Men's Gymnasium "Gymnasium Cyril and Methodius", was established. Later, a women's school also followed. In 1888 the German School of Thessaloniki was established, which was closed from 1915 to 1924 and from 1944 to 1956, as a result of the World Wars.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, was born in Thessaloniki in 1881 (his birthplace is now a museum and part of the Turkish Consulate). After Vitaliano Poselli had successfully established himself as an architect in Thessaloniki, he was followed around 1890 by his compatriot Pierro Arrigoni, both of whom designed numerous private and public buildings and significantly shaped the image of the city.

In 1896, the strategically important railway line to Istanbul was opened. The 510-kilometre line followed the coast and was built by the French Société du Chemin de Fer Ottoman Jonction Salonique-Constantinople with financial support from the Ottoman Empire.

In April 1903, the city and its surroundings became the target of several terrorist attacks carried out by the Bulgarian BMARK. In the process, the French ship Guadalquivir was sunk in the harbor. The Ottoman Bank and other public buildings were also severely damaged by bombings.

In 1908, the Young Turk revolution started from Thessaloniki. In 1909, the Young Turks exiled the deposed Sultan Abdülhamid II to Thessaloniki and placed him under house arrest in Villa Allatini. Thessaloniki remained under Ottoman rule until the Balkan Wars.

Balkan Wars and First World War

On 8 November 1912, 20 days after Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece declared war on the Ottoman Empire (First Balkan War), Greek troops and Bulgarian forces laid siege to the city. The commander of the Ottoman forces Hasan Tahsin Paşa negotiated a surrender protocol and decided to give the city to the Greeks (and not the Bulgarians) without a fight - with him 25,000 soldiers went into captivity.

On March 18, 1913, the Greek King George I fell victim to an assassination attempt in Thessaloniki. On July 8, Serbia, Montenegro, Turkey, Romania and Greece declared war on Bulgaria (after a Bulgarian attack on Serbia) (Second Balkan War), in the course of which the Bulgarians were expelled from Thessaloniki. In the Peace of Bucharest on 10 August 1913, Thessaloniki and other parts of Macedonia were awarded to Greece. During World War I, allied troops landed in Thessaloniki in mid-October 1915 with the support of the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, against the will of the Greek king from the house of Sonderburg-Glücksburg, in order to attack the troops of the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Germany, Bulgaria) standing in Serbia (cf. Saloniki Front). On October 18, 1916, Venizelos proclaimed a counter-government in Thessaloniki. From 1916 to 1918, Thessaloniki was the headquarters of the Allied occupation forces (Orient Army). On August 18, 1917, a major fire destroyed almost the entire southern city center. The reconstruction was led by Ernest Hébrard, who had previously come to Thessaloniki with the Orient Army.

The post-World War I Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) waged by Greece against Turkey in Asia Minor resulted in Greece's defeat and a refugee catastrophe. A population exchange was agreed in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne: A large part of the Greek refugees from Anatolia found a new home in and around Thessaloniki, in return the Turkish population left the city.

In 1926, the Thessaloniki International Fair was held for the first time. Until then, there were only the irregular industry and goods shows in the Athens Zappeion. Until today it is the most important fair in Greece, even if special fairs have diminished its importance.

German occupation and the fate of the Jewish community

Because of the large Jewish community, the city was formerly known as the "Jerusalem of the Balkans". Recent archaeological finds in the old Jewish cemetery indicate Jewish settlement in Thessaloniki since the 2nd century AD. However, most of the city's Jewish inhabitants were descended from Sephardic Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century (Alhambra edict). Before World War II, the city was the seat of about 40 synagogues and had a Jewish population of about 56,000. It was thus considered the largest Sephardic community in Europe. Until the 20th century, Ladino was the dominant language along with Greek. In 1910 David Ben-Gurion stayed in the city to study Turkish and was fascinated by the diversity of the Jewish community at that time. In 1927, the suburb of Florentin was created for Jewish refugees north of Jaffa, Israel, after a pogrom and fires left many Jews homeless.

From April 1941 to October 30, 1944, Thessaloniki was occupied by German troops as a result of the Balkan campaign, and the Pavlos Melas concentration camp existed in a former barracks.

The German occupiers demanded high protection money from the Jewish community. This yielded the enormous amount of 3 trillion drachmas. This amount was considered too low. As a result, on December 6, 1942, the occupiers confiscated the Jewish cemetery and dismantled the gravestones to build a swimming pool for the German soldiers. Subsequently, stones were also given to the population as building material. On October 1, 1943, military administrator Karl Blaesing provided marble from the destroyed Jewish cemetery to a church congregation. The cemetery had about 300,000 to 500,000 graves and was one of the larger of its kind. They sold the area as building land and part of Aristotle University is located on the site.

Between March 14, 1943 and August 7, 1943, almost all Thessalonian Jews were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 19 train transports by the German occupiers under the leadership of Alois Brunner; there they were murdered (see also Extermination of the Jewish Community). Only about 2000 Jews survived. The Italian embassy official Guelfo Zamboni distributed 250 Italian passports to Jews to protect them from deportation. In view of the total looting of apartments of deported Jews by members of the Wehrmacht, they were usually uninhabitable afterwards.

The German director of the naval meteorological observatory based here, Georg Eckert, gained influence with German military authorities and occupation authorities and, under the guise of ethnological studies, was at the same time able to establish contacts with the Greek resistance movement. He was able to rescue some of the persecuted and prevent reprisals. In the autumn of 1944, he mediated the withdrawal of German troops from Salonika without a fight between the Wehrmacht and the ELAS People's Liberation Army and then joined the ELAS with his followers. Eckert formed an "Anti-Fascist Committee" from politically reliable individuals, which organized the German resisters, deserters and prisoners of war of the ELAS who remained in Salonika and had evaded surrender to the British troops into anti-fascist companies under Greek supervision.

Postwar

After the end of the Greek Civil War in 1949, the reconstruction and economic recovery of the city began. The city is also called "co-capital" (Greek συμπρωτεύουσα, symprotevousa), because it is perceived by its inhabitants as equal to Athens. But it also forms an antithesis to the latter to this day. This bipolarity is remotely comparable to the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The International Fair of Thessaloniki gained an important role in the post-war period. At the 1957 fair, the café frappé, very popular in Greece, was presented. In the 1960s, the new Central Station and the so-called Palais des Sports were completed. In 1966, Greek television broadcast for the first time from the OTE television tower, which had been completed shortly before at the fairgrounds.

In 1978, on 20 June, Thessaloniki and its surroundings were hit by a major earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale: the epicentre of the quake was 30 km north-east of the city; the quake claimed 50 lives and caused considerable damage to property.

In 1997 the city was European Capital of Culture. In this context, a predecessor of today's Jewish Museum was opened, and the Ministry of Culture acquired the collection of George Costakis as a foundation for the State Museum of Contemporary Art.

At the summit in Porto Carras near Thessaloniki in June 2003, during the Greek Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the integration of the states of the former Yugoslavia and Albania was set as the next major goal in EU enlargement (Thessaloniki Pledge). The city hosted part of the football competitions of the 2004 Summer Olympics from 11 to 27 August 2004. In 2006, construction began on the Thessaloniki Metro, which, after many delays, is scheduled to be operational in 2020.

In 2010, with the 2010 administrative reform, the municipality of Thessaloniki was expanded to include the neighboring municipality of Triandria.

Population development

Although the population of the municipality of Thessaloniki has decreased in comparison to the last three censuses, the metropolitan population has grown as more residents move to the suburbs. The city forms the base of a metropolitan region.

Year	Urban population	Change	Population in the metropolitan region
1981	406.413	N/A	N/A
1991	383.967	–22,446/–5,52 %	N/A
2001	363.987	–19,980/–5,20 %	954.027

Aerial view of the eastern districts of Thessaloniki and Kalamaria


Holocaust Memorial at the Thessaloniki Cemetery


"Capture of Jews" in July 1942, photograph of the propaganda company.


The Ottoman Bank after the bombing, April 1903


Byzantine city wall


Landmark: the "White Tower


Bronze coin from Thessaloniki, for Julia Domna, Kabir in distyle temple


Triumphal arch of Galerius (Kamara)

Climate

Thessaloniki lies in the area of the Mediterranean climate. Due to the close land connection to the Balkans, however, the temperatures are a few degrees lower than in southern Greece (on average 1.6 degrees cooler than Athens). In winter, therefore, there are more frequent cold air influxes from the north, which almost annually lead to snowfall and ground frost.

Thessaloniki

Climate diagram

J F M A M J J A S O N D     39   10 1     40   12 2     46   14 5     36   20 8     44   25 13     31   30 17     22   32 19     21   33 20     27   28 16     40   22 12     57   17 8     53   12 3 Temperature in °C, precipitation in mm Source: wetterkontor.de

 

Monthly average temperatures and precipitation for Thessaloniki Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Max. Temperature (°C) 9,6 12,0 14,1 19,6 24,8 29,6 32,3 32,7 27,9 22,0 16,7 12,0 Ø 21,2 Min. temperature (°C) 1,4 2,4 4,6 7,9 12,6 16,9 19,4 19,5 16,1 11,6 7,9 3,4 Ø 10,3 Precipitation (mm) 39 40 46 36 44 31 22 21 27 40 57 53 456 Sunshine hours (h/d) 3,3 4,0 4,7 6,6 8,1 9,6 10,8 9,8 7,9 5,3 3,8 3,1 Ø 6,4 Rainy days (d) 7 6 7 5 6 4 3 3 3 5 7 7 63 Water temperature (°C) 12 12 13 14 18 22 24 25 23 20 16 14 Ø 17,8 Humidity (%) 75 71 72 68 65 58 52 52 61 67 78 78 Ø 66,4 Temperature 9,6 1,4 12,0 2,4 14,1 4,6 19,6 7,9 24,8 12,6 29,6 16,9 32,3 19,4 32,7 19,5 27,9 16,1 22,0 11,6 16,7 7,9 12,0 3,4 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec   Precipitation 39 40 46 36 44 31 22 21 27 40 57 53   Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Source: wetterkontor.de